Description
It takes a certain kind of person to become a collaborator for Axis powers during World War II - a level of self-delusion and survival instinct that is off the charts.
In Ian Buruma's latest book, "The Collaborators," he paints in-depth portraits of three such figures - Felix Kersten (masseur to Heinrich Himmler and others in the Nazi elite), Yoshiko Kawashima (a cross-dressing Manchurian princess who spied for the Japanese) and Friedrich Weinreb (the “fixer” whose fellow Jews paid him to secure reprieves from deportation to concentration camps, only to be turned over to Nazi police). The strands that braid these individual's lives together often represent shocking moral failings - but also deeply human experiences.
In his conversation with host Robert Amsterdam, Buruma describes how he approached the structure of writing the book, what drew him to these three seemingly disparate figures, and how often first tellings of history are shrouded in self-deception by the subjects which can translate to common misapprehensions of who they really were.
A popular meme in Kenya goes something like this: everytime China visits, we get a hospital. When the US visits, we get a lecture.
That's of course not an accurate picture of the competition between the West and China in the global South, but it does highlight a certain disconnect that can be...
Published 11/28/24
What does it mean to perceive reality? How do art, science, and philosophy converge in shaping our understanding of the world? In this episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam, we sit down with William Egginton, acclaimed author and professor, to dive into his latest book, "The Rigor of...
Published 11/20/24